While You Were Sleeping
by PsychLassieFan4Ever
Summary: Something has happened to Carlton. Shawn isn't holding up well. Juliet is always there to help her friends.


Disclaimer: I mean no harm to anyone involved the creation of 'Psych' or it's characters and the world they play in. This has not been written for money.

A/N: This was written for ShassieWeek and was supposed to be for the second prompt- domestic, but it turned into this instead. Luckily, the third prompt was hurt/comfort. This is from Juliet's POV, contains no sexual bits, but it is a Shassie fic, no matter what Shawn says about Juliet's breasts.

* * *

Detective Juliet O'Hara had never seen her friend so quite in the years she'd known him. He was usually the brightest face in the room, but as she drove him to his house for a mandatory nap and shower, possibly even some food later, all she felt was sadness.

Shawn Spencer had stayed at his boyfriend's side at the hospital for three straight days before she realized that he hadn't gone home between her visits. She stopped by the hospital as often as she could between her work shifts. It was her partner that was in a coma, after all. She couldn't understand how no one; not the Chief, not Henry, not even Gus had noticed that Shawn hadn't left Carlton's side for days. Juliet knew she had to help Shawn, but didn't know how or what to do for him.

So, she drove him back to the house he and Carlton shared, made sure he ate something and made him take a shower before she forced him to lie down and try to get some rest.

"Carlton wouldn't want you to do this to yourself, Shawn. Even over him."

Thankfully, he hadn't put up much of a fight and drifted off to sleep quite quickly.

She stayed with him and dozed off on their couch after catching up on her email and making a call to Chief Vick about Shawn's condition. She was told to take the rest of the day off along with tomorrow.

"Take care of him. You know Lassiter would be pissed off at us if we let anything happen to Shawn."

Yeah. She knew.

Her partner's relationship with Shawn hadn't come easy to either of them. Henry was still coming to terms that his son had fallen in love with the gruff and sometimes tactless detective. It wasn't Shawn's homosexuality that he had a problem with, but that Lassiter was his son's choice. Henry wanted Shawn to be with someone who could really love him and Lassiter wasn't the type to show affection; at least in public. Juliet had heard Shawn's telling of the time Henry had just walked into Shawn's apartment and had found them, well, "making sweet man-love" had been Shawn's description. Since then, Henry had cut the detective some slack in his assessment, but he was still a dad.

She had found it inconceivable at first that they were together. They had spent so much time yelling and trying to one-up each other, that when her partner took her aside and told her about the relationship, she had laughed until her eyes teared up. Juliet felt bad once she stopped laughing and saw the look on Carlton's face. That and the fact that he hadn't walked away from her while she was laughing like a loon. It had taken her awhile as well to get used to them being together.

Fast-forward two years and Juliet couldn't imagine the two of them without each other. They were perfectly complimentary to the other. Where Carlton had his steadfast rules and discipline, Shawn was easy-going and fun. They balanced each other out and, dare she think the schmaltzy, they completed each other. Sometimes she would just sit and watch them together and wish she could find someone she could get along with as well as they did.

Shawn had now been without Carlton for three days since the accident and Juliet had never seen someone so lost. Sure, they had been separated before for conferences or extradition trips, but never for something like this.

Carlton had been in pursuit of a robbery's getaway vehicle, lights and sirens blaring, when he was hit. The robbers had a second car waiting to disable anyone following them, and Carlton was that 'someone'. Juliet and Shawn had been working a different case when they got the call and arrived on the scene together. She couldn't erase the image of her partner's body being removed from the cruiser. He never moved on his own or spoke to the paramedics. He was unconscious from the very moment she and Shawn arrived and he remained in that state currently.

The doctors are hopeful that he will come around and wake up, but it was a guessing game when it came to head injuries.

Juliet was disturbed from her nap by sounds coming from the bedroom. She walked in and found Shawn tangled within the bed sheets and crying while clutching a pillow to his chest.

"Shawn?"

"Jules. I want him to wake up so badly. He has to wake up, Jules. He can't leave us like this. Not like this. A car accident? That is not how Carlton 'Danger' Lassiter was supposed..."

Shawn's tears choked him up, but even though he couldn't finish his sentence, she knew what he meant. Carlton always regaled the new rookies with his 'firestorm of bullets' speech. How nothing would keep him from his job of protecting his city from criminals and that he would go down shooting. Shawn was right. Carlton couldn't go out like this.

"You're right, Shawn." She sat on the bed and crawled up next to him. She held him as close as she could. "You know, better than anyone how hard he fights. I'll bet he's fighting now with whatever forces are keeping the two of you separated. Whether it be his body's need to heal or, if we take a science fiction approach, the grim reaper."

She heard and felt Shawn chuckle then hiccup from the crying.

"Yeah. I can see Lassie engaged in a heated gun battle or battle of wits with the angel that has him decide to go or stay." Shawn rolled over until he was looking at her in the eyes. His face was wet and red and from the way his mouth twitched, she could tell he was on the verge of crying again. "He had better get to stay and come back to us, Jules." Shawn lost his fight with the tears and they fell while he whimpered. "I need Lassie to come home."

Juliet's tears fell too at that moment and she pulled her friend closer until his head was lying against her chest. They cried together for awhile, then she waited until Shawn's breathing evened out and he succumbed to the exhaustion his body suffered from before she also fell asleep.

She woke up several hours later still wrapped around Shawn while he drooled on her shirt. Juliet stretched her arms, but she was mindful to not wake up Shawn. She tried to pull herself up and away, but he tugged her closer and ended up snuggling his head in her breasts. If he were any other man, at any other moment in time he would have earned a slap. Instead she merely pulled away. Shawn groaned and then rolled onto his back.

"Jules, as much as I enjoy laying bed with you, I think I need to get back to Lassie."

She agreed. They both pulled themselves together and returned to the hospital.

Shawn sat next to Carlton's bed and she sat against the wall. Juliet watched the way Shawn caressed her partner's arm and held his hand. It was all so very sweet. She smiled to think that if Carlton was awake he would have scowled at her for even thinking that anything he did was 'sweet'.

She excused herself from the room and slipped into the women's restroom. There was probably better places for her to breakdown, but she slid down the far wall until she was sitting on the floor and hid her head against her knees. No tears fell this time around. She felt as if she cried everything out with Shawn hours ago. No, this time she did something she hadn't done since she was a child; Juliet O'Hara prayed.

After a few minutes of squeezing her eyes shut so hard and clenching her hands into tight fists she realized her prayer turned into begging and pleading to God, or any higher power to bring Lassiter out of his coma. Shawn needed his boyfriend, she needed her partner, the SBPD needed their Head Detective, and Santa Barbara needed him on the streets doing what he did best.

Once she felt she had wished and hoped all she could, she pulled herself up and off the floor, washed her hands and walked back towards Carlton's room. As she neared the room, she sensed more and more activity as nurses and PAs rushed past her. Juliet didn't know whether to be excited or scared when she saw that most of the movement was directed at her partner's room.

Her first thought was that something had now happened to Shawn while she was gone. She walked faster and then her heart nearly fell to her stomach when she saw Shawn standing to the side of the room and a doctor hovered over her partner. The doctor was saying something to the others in the room and shining a light into Carlton's eyes. It was at that moment she realized that Carlton's eyes were open

Carlton had woken up.

Juliet immediately called Chief Vick and the Henry Spencer. She caught Shawn's gaze briefly, she was being kept out of the room by the sheer number of bodies already inside. She walked down the hall and called Gus.

"Carlton's woken up."

"Oh, Thank God. Shawn has got to be relieved."

"I'm sure he is." She began to tell him about their afternoon and ending her recitation with the news of Carlton waking up, but not being able to go inside his room because so many people were in there.  
When she ended the call and worked her way back to Carlton's room, all she wanted was to see her partner. She rounded the corner and found that the mass of people had moved out and had left Shawn alone with his boyfriend. This time, Carlton was talking.

"Sorry to interrupt you two."

"O'Hara. You are not an interruption." His voice came out dry and gravelly. He gestured for her to come closer and then he pulled her into a hug.

"Nice to see those blue eyes of yours again, partner." She broke the embrace and stood up. "How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?"

She saw Carlton shift in the bed. The doctors had splinted his left leg to let a fracture heal, but all the x-rays hadn't picked up any other broken bones. They were most concerned about any brain damage.

"I feel like I got ran over by a tank. Everything is a bit achy. Did you catch the bank robbers?"

Good ol' Carlton Lassiter. He was the only person she knew that could wake up from a three day coma and ask about the criminals he was in pursuit of when he had his accident.

"Yes, detective. We got 'em."

Carlton's face contorted at her statement as if she'd reached out and pinched him. He looked to Shawn and scooted himself over before he pulled Shawn up onto the bed with him.

Shawn snuggled into his boyfriend the way she had seen him snuggle into her earlier that afternoon. Shawn mumbled something that neither of them heard.

"What was that, baby?" Carlton questioned Shawn about what he had said.

"I just said that it feels nice to have you back with us. And that Jules' chest is actually more comfortable to lay on. It's probably because of the extra padding going on up there, but..."

Juliet felt her face flush when Carlton's eyebrows shot into his hairline and he stared at her. He was looking at her when he spoke, but he was talking to Shawn.

"How do you know what it feels like to lay on my partner?"

"Oh, we slept together this afternoon. I figured you wouldn't mind, since you were in a coma and all."

Since he was looking at Juliet, Carlton didn't see the huge grin on his boyfriend's face.

"Shawn! Carlton, we did not..."

He held his hand up to stop her.

"It's okay, O'Hara." Carlton had his own smirk now. "Even if you two had had sex, which I know you didn't, I know Shawn would eventually come back to me. He has certain needs in bed that I know you can't satisfy. Isn't that right, Shawn?"

"MmmHmm. Yeah, you know that's right."

The two men held each other as if the other might float away if not held. After the events of the last several days, she could let a little snark at her expense go by without getting mad.

Two hours later, Carlton's doctor finished with all the diagnostic tests and gave him an optimistic and relieved prognosis. Henry, Gus and Karen Vick had shown up to see how he was faring and to check on Shawn. Through the entire process, Juliet watched Shawn and could tell he was barely holding it together. She could see that he wasn't letting Carlton out of his sight or grasp, even when the doctor performed his tests he still held his boyfriend's hand.

Chief Vick asked Juliet to stay in the hall with her as she asked the doctor about Carlton's status while the others were inside his room. As Carlton's boss and the Chief of Police, the doctor gave it to her straight forward.

"To be honest, he is one lucky son of a bitch. Sorry, if that offends. I have seen numerous vehicle collisions as the one Detective Lassiter was involved with much more serious injuries. I can see no lasting brain damage or memory loss at this time, but some might show itself in the next few days. With the brain, we just can never be sure. He will need a cast for the fracture to his left tibia, so that in itself dictates light desk duty until the fracture heals. It is, however a fracture, not a break, so once again he is one lucky son of a bitch."

Karen and Juliet exhaled the breaths they realized they had been holding and looked at each other. Now one of them got the job of telling Lassiter that he would be riding a desk until his leg healed.

Juliet spoke up.

"You're the chief. I think he needs to hear it from you." And she turned to join the others in Carlton's room.


End file.
